sets will go dark in 21 months if they don't acquire a digital converter, buy a new set or incur the monthly cost of a cable or satellite bill. They also need to know that digital over-the-air television will continue to be free, will offer them many more channels and will give them a better picture even on an older set-if they get a converter box."
It is also apparent that over-the-air households have resisted subscription campaigns by cable and satellite companies, according to APTS research. The population of over-the-air households has virtually remained unchanged since 2004 at 22.6 million, compared with 22.5 million in the first quarter of 2007.
As the nation prepares for the transition from analog to digital-only signals, consumers are generally unaware of the nature of the transition and do not fully know what the direct impact on their ability to watch TV will be, the study concluded. An earlier APTS report revealed that 61 percent of over- the-air households had "no idea" the DTV transition was taking place.
Retail point-of-sale efforts to educate these households about the February 2009 digital transition are likely to have limited impact, given that over-the-air viewers lag in their purchases of TV sets in general, and buying digital sets in particular, the study found. In the past three years over-the- air households purchased new TV sets at about a 12 percent to 13 percent rate each year. In comparison, cable and satellite homes bought new TVs at an 18 percent rate per year. For example, the number of cable/satellite households that owned a digital television grew from 4.49 percent in the first quarter of 2005 to 23.45 percent in the first quarter of 2007. However, the percentage of over-the-air households that owned a digital television only grew from 1.96 percent to 7.12 percent over that same period. The results are based on nearly 36,000 telephone interviews of American television viewers conducted by research firm CENTRIS in Fort Washington, Pa.
CENTRIS Senior Vice President Dr. Barry Goodstadt observed: "These latest results suggest that early and strenuous efforts are needed to educate consumers regarding their available options when analog TV transmissions are ended in 2009."
The study also revealed that of the 22 million U.S. households that get their television exclusively free and over-the-air, only 7% own a digital television, compared to 23% who subscribe to cable or satellite. Therefore, few of these households are now equipped to obtain digital TV programming on an over-the-air basis and will be slow in making the change to televisions capable of receiving digital signals.
When Congress passed legislation in 2006 to end analog TV broadcasting, it projected the U.S. Treasury will pocket $10 billion by auctioning off the channels now used by analog broadcasters. The government also set aside up to $1.5 billion for a coupon program to subsidize digital-to-analog set-top converter boxes. But Congress only provided $5 million to make consumers aware of the coupon program and the end of analog television.
